Does Texting Get a Bad Rap?

A commenter pointed to an interesting story on ABC News about the impact of texting on kids' ability to communicate and spell.

The story cites a Pew Research Center study that found students define writing texts and blogs as "communicating," while what they do at school is called "writing."

"As long as students see that divide, you have a smaller likelihood of texting infiltrating school assignments," she said. And as for those who continue to worry about the rise of texting and technospeak? New forms of communication have always received some push back, Yancey said.

"Every time there's some change, a kind of nostalgia kicks in. And sometimes the nostalgia laments what's going to be lost and sometimes the nostalgia takes a critical view of the new," she said. "And I think that's part of the process of making change."

Same goes for tweeting. Reader Bernard Schuster draws a parallel between Tweeting and texting:

Many tweets that you read on Twitter are totally frivolous, obscene, or silly. Yet there are also people using Twitter who write tweets that are like abstracts to much deeper and richer ideas. For professionals who use Twitter, tweets are often an invitation to a blog, article, or other larger presentation of an idea...so it seems to me that although a Tweet may be short, it may still be encouraging deeper levels of thought. Also tweets are usually not isolated events. One tweet may be a simple, short idea but the tweet likely relates to many other tweets by that writer, and many of the writer's tweets may fit together to create a bigger story.

I have become a Twitter convert myself. Though I'm fairly late to the game, and have yet to take full advantage of its potential, I find it an incredible resource of rich information and commentary.

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And like a good tweet, texting can be as inspiring and lyrical as a haiku.

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